The Decline and Fall of Pax Americana

An autopsy of the Atlanticist Empire

One might argue that it’s too early to begin a postmortem analysis of the American Empire. It is not. The failure of the Biden Administration to prioritize a ceasefire and humanitarian relief for the beleaguered Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is the final nail in the coffin for the moralizing narrative of the American Empire.

Whether it’s Armenians in the corridor, Georgians in the Caucasus, Ukrainians in the conflict, or Arabs in the fertile crescent, the mythic narrative of America as a harbinger of human rights, enforcer of a rules-based international order, and avatar of peace and prosperity is discredited. America has become the sick man of world politics, a cynical and paranoid enforcer on behalf of its parochial interests and powerful insiders.

The notion that wealth and weaponry are decisive is false. The locus of political technology has devolved and distributed to the point where today’s popular will eclipses yesterday’s nuclear superstate politics. This can be seen in the Ukraine Conflict, where silicon and steel canceled themselves out and Russia could only capture the parts of Ukraine that are credibly Russian once the conflict broke out. Neither side can tug the line in either direction from where that sense of legitimacy lies.

America’s not the only one to have its nose bloodied by the new geopolitical rules. Russia’s attempt to invade Kyiv was a humiliating setback that permanently stunted Russia’s ambitions in the region. Should they not learn their lesson and attempt to take Odessa later, Russia will be humiliated again. But the final humiliation in the conflict rests with America, which promised it could help retake the traditionally Russian regions of Ukraine and could not.

Netanyahu is playing by the 20th century playbook, ignoring how the world has changed in his lifetime of playing a game where logistical, technological, and resource advantages were both decisive and decisively in his favor. Israel’s messaging didn’t even bother to build a general case to the international community for its actions, much less the Muslim World. Bibi doesn’t think he needs to. In his mind, America is all he needs to achieve the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.

Calamitous wars always begin with one side or the other having a delusional take on their relative strength. In this case, it’s both sides that are delusional; with China, Russia, and the Muslim World’s leaders believing they’re much weaker than they are and both America and Israel’s leaders believing they’re much stronger than they are. Both the “Arab Street” and American main street understand the situation better than their leaders, with an inversion of sentiment where Muslims are itching to fight and Americans are itching to keep out of it.

There are ten times more Muslims on social media than there were a decade ago. There are forty million Muslims in Europe, comprising a new European nation worth of people scattered across the continent. The economy operating outside Pax Americana is sustainable and self-reliant in a way it wasn’t ten years ago. And as we saw with the Hamas operation, there’s a logistical and technological parity between even the most marginal Third World factions and the most militarized First World regimes than could have been imagined ten years ago.

I have no specific predictions for the conflict, and don’t believe any can be offered given the butterfly effect of chaotic and unpredictable consequences of consequences of consequences in a complex situation like this. I do, however, have a general prediction, which is that America will walk away from the conflict shaken, with its assumptions about its ability to project power and dictate the terms of diplomacy shaken.

While it was geostrategically inevitable that Pax Americana’s hard power and soft power would both wane somewhat as the rest catch up, America’s decadent, derelict, zionist-controlled leadership are accelerating the implosion of American soft power and a rapid decline of its hard power. Peripheral actors at the margins of American power, like Hungary, Turkey, Georgia, and India, will begin shifting their narratives and plans away from an unreliable and incoherent partner in global affairs.

If the conflict does escalate, the Dissident Right needs to be on guard against new legislation that criminalizes opposition to Zionist foreign policy. Avoid statements that can be taken to imply explicit loyalty towards a foreign power, even if meant in jest. Focus as much as possible on American domestic aspects of the situation, which are harder to prosecute under the fuzzy web of “anti-terror” and “foreign interference” legislation on the books.

Both internationally and domestically, the western elites are discarding the pretense of civil liberties, free speech, free assembly, and the free press. Don’t back down, but do plan accordingly.